The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars (26 page)

“ ‘After all, my dear, are you afraid of your mistress? Answer me, yes or no.’

“He stroked his little black beard and, in that sing-songy voice of his, replied:

“ ‘For myself, no. For you, yes. Irina is out for blood. God only knows what she is capable of doing! Believe me, Diana, it would be more prudent if we left your official residence, and went into hiding somewhere outside of Great Britain—in France, for example, where we could be married secretly. Later, with the passage of time, things would quiet down and I wouldn’t have exposed you to the grave danger which I foresee.’

“I was enraged at the idea of running away from that insignificant snip of a Russian. Imagine my hiding from Mouravieff! And getting married to that dirty little Communist on the q. t. So, I said to Varichkine:

“ ‘My dear, your Irina can, perhaps, condemn or pardon the wretched counter-revolutionaries who are unlucky enough to find themselves in the dungeons of the Tcheka, but I can assure you that she would think twice before molesting a Wynham on British soil. In our country, we hang people for less than that. Our jury has not for criminals, even when they act under the impulse of passion, the stupid indulgence of French juries, which by acquitting guilty persons, encourage the abuse of revolvers and knives. I am going to stay right here
at Glensloy. We will be married on the twenty-sixth of June since Séliman will be here to act as witness for me and we will totally disregard the feelings of that lady who seems to enjoy so thoroughly the spilling of blood.’

“After that little speech Varichkine said no more about his mistress. He even seemed to have forgotten her existence and discussed only the most delightful projects. The day before yesterday morning, having awakened at nine, I asked Juliette to tell Mr. Varichkine that we would go out on the lake for a little while before lunch. Juliette looked at me in astonishment.

“ ‘But didn’t Milady know that Mr. Varichkine had gone?’

“ ‘What? Has he already gone out in the park?’

“ ‘Why, no, Milady. He received a telegram at eight o’clock and immediately ordered the chauffeur to take him to Glasgow in time to catch the first train for London.’

“I was so completely bewildered that I could think of nothing to say. Juliette left the room. She returned five minutes later. Edward, the butler, had given her an envelope addressed to me. It contained a brief penciled message from Varichkine in which he informed me that his presence in London was urgent, indispensable, that there was nothing to worry about, that he would wire me and that he would be back in forty-eight hours, which would have been yesterday. And, my dear Gerard, not only has Varichkine failed to return, but I haven’t heard a word from him since his departure. What do you suppose can have happened?”

What could I infer from his disappearance? I had a presentiment that it foreboded no good, but I naturally did not want to add to Lady Diana’s fears.

“Russian fiancés are always very generous,” I suggested, “he probably went to London to get your wedding present.”

Twilight had fallen over the park. Ben Lomond had lost its
cardinal hat. As the wind was rising Lady Diana took my arm affectionately.

“Come along, Gerard, you poor dear. You must be hungry. Let’s have dinner.”

The dining-room of the castle was so vast that, except for the central table which was under the conical projection of a forged iron lamp, the rest was in semi-darkness. One could scarcely make out the wild boars woven into the worn tapestries, or a page written by Sir Walter Scott in a little gold frame which hung between the two long windows, or a large cloth, over the mantelpiece where reposed a full-length portrait of the third Duke of Kilmorack, honorary Colonel of the 34
^th
Regiment of Cameronians.

Lady Diana had slipped into a charming tea-rose
déshabillé
, trimmed with white fur. When she appeared, framed in the doorway, I exclaimed:

“The Lady of the Lake.”

She smiled. She cleverly concealed beneath her irony the anxiety which was haunting her.

“Is it Sir Walter Scott’s handwriting in the dining-room which suggests such a comparison?” she asked. “You should have said, ‘The Lady in the Soup—’ ”

“But why? Everything is for the best and fortune is sure to smile on you again. Varichkine will return from London with a diamond—a diamond worthy of you—which will adorn your right hand while your wedding finger will be decorated with the symbol of a new alliance. Do you still anticipate the marriage with real pleasure?”

“Can a marriage of convenience ever be really pleasant, Gerard?”

“You told me in Berlin that your Russian had seduced your affections.”

“Yes, but I’m not so sure of it now. Then he was a novelty. He amused me. I was playing. And besides, when one is down one makes foolish promises. The fulfillment always seems so distant that one doesn’t even see it on the horizon. Then the day approaches when the debt must be paid. One ceases to be so enthusiastic and one carefully measures the width of the bridge which must be crossed. Varichkine means money to me. That’s true enough. But, in the nuptial chamber, I shall receive him in the spirit of resignation. And the world will be able to mark on its records, one more spouse and one more unhappy woman.”

“Is it the
mésalliance
which shocks you?”

“No. The foremost man in Moscow is worth more than the man second in prominence on the Stock Exchange!”

“Is it the man himself?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“It is simply the humiliation of actually selling myself for the first time. Varichkine might have pleased me at a house party. But to have him make a permanent mark on my life is another story. Understand the difference if you can!”

“I understand, Lady Diana.”

“You know, my dear Gerard, that I have had a number of lovers. The ‘Madonna of the Sleeping Cars’ has for a halo only the vicious circle of her caprices and, for a chapel, only the most luxurious apartments of large palaces.… I don’t intend to worship virtue nor to dress myself in sackcloth so long as Patou continues to make stunning models, and Guerlain such heavenly perfumes. But never before have I put a price on my favors nor have I speculated with my kisses. And so you see, I feel frightfully soiled and my pride is wounded because, for the first time in my life, on the twenty-sixth of June, I, Lady
Winifred Grace Christabel Diana Wynham of Glensloy Castle, whose ancestor, the Countess of March, known as Agnes the Black, resisted for nineteen days the assaults of the English under Salisbury’s orders, behind the walls of the castle of Dunbar, I am going to abdicate my pride, bid farewell to my traditions on the threshold of my boudoir, and—cruel innovation—receive something from a man instead of giving something to him.”

I listened attentively to Lady Diana—and with admiration as well. I rather liked her snobbishness and was not amazed by her peculiar form of self-respect. I thought regretfully of her coming marriage to this proletarian, enriched overnight by a lucky throw of dice on the bar of the Demagogy. I pictured her marriage to Varichkine, whose ancestors, instead of leading Highland clans, had wandered, uncultivated nomads, across the plains of Turkestan. Her ankles, as delicately formed as those of a young antelope, her refined face, with its haughty bearing, her big eyes, alight with perspicacity and with ready understanding, all those gorgeous natural gifts were to pay for the possession of money and luxury, as indispensable to her life as warmth is to an island bird and heat to an orchid.

“Then you have always given?” I ventured, playing with the soft fur of her flowing gown.

She replied gravely, “Always.… Up to now, I have felt sorry for women who made it a point of honor to see how much money they could extract from the pocketbooks of their lovers. To be paid by a man—no matter how graceful the gesture—to be recompensed, to be the charming furnisher for the masculine client, to be considered as something purchasable, what degradation for the woman! Ask my lovers. Never have I even been willing to accept a bunch of flowers from one of them. When they used to send me roses or bits of jewelry, I
returned them with my card and these words,
No flowers, no gifts
. I did that more than anything else to make them feel they were my inferiors, that they were obligated to me, and that I had no thought of reversing the situation. Now I am about to join the rank and file by becoming the obedient and respectful wife of a man who will have—indirectly—procured for me the riches without which I cannot live. So much the worse for me. And for him, too.”

Lady Diana sighed. She squeezed my hand, and added almost solemnly:

“In any event, Gerard, and I say it with no melodramatic accent, nor with any false pride, should my hopes fail to be realized and should the Telav oil fields prove to be a mirage, I would rather commit suicide than enroll myself in the army of what I shall always consider white slaves. I couldn’t bear to have some captain of industry deign to accept me and brand my shoulder with the mark of servitude. Remember, Gerard! Remember that dream I had and how I went to the ineffable Professor Traurig to learn its portent! The little red man in the scarlet country of my sleep was Varichkine in the bloody uniform of Russian Communism. I had an exact premonition of actual events when my hand was pulled into that Lilliputian palace. I am verily the pursuer of my nightmare since, if Varichkine enriches me, I shall belong to him and if my ruin is consummated, suicide will be staring me in the face. Don’t protest! You know that I prefer the sparkle of champagne to the dregs of port and the silent language of love to the eloquence of the flesh.”

Lady Diana stopped talking. We both listened suddenly. The roll of very distant thunder rumbled through the hills. I arose and looked out the window. The lake’s surface was ruffled by the wind which caused the leaves on the trees in the
park to dance madly. To the southwest, clouds were assembling, covering the moon.

“A nice storm blowing up,” I said. “This evening has been too peaceful to last and I thought the air was heavy.”

“What time is it, Gerard?”

“Eleven o’clock.”

“Come up to my boudoir. The library seems rather deadly tonight. All these books with their ancient bindings make me feel as though I were in a gilded cage.” She shuddered.

I put my arm affectionately around her shoulder and tried to relieve her agitation.

“You are nervous this evening, Diana. It’s probably the approaching storm. And then the uncertainty about Varichkine. But be calm! It isn’t far from the naphtha springs to the Bank of England. You will soon be rich again. And nothing else matters very much.”

We climbed the monumental staircase of the castle, a spiral of gray stone, to the accompaniment of the approaching thunder. The boudoir, contiguous to the bedroom, was a marvel of modern taste in this venerable castle. Among other things, an admirable Raeburn hung above the immense sofa. I contemplated it in silent awe.

“It’s stifling in here!” exclaimed Lady Diana, pushing up a window.

As a matter of fact the humidity was such that the crêpe de chine of Lady Diana’s
déshabillé
clung to her lovely body. She reminded me of one of those figures on the bows of Mediterranean triremes when she threw back her head and stretched out her white arms to inhale more freely the night air.

She sighed: “Ah, Gerard! What happiness! If I could but be struck by lightning here tonight!”

I went to her: “Come, come, Diana dear! No more empty
words. We humans poison ourselves with them. Fate is the surest guide!”

We were leaning out of the big window which gave on the terrace and the lake. The nocturnal chaos of the storm-swept countryside imposed silence on us. Never had a more romantic setting been given to two human beings, both infinitely appreciative of the metamorphosis of nature. The moon, in the embrace of enormous clouds which she coated with silver, still lighted the livid waters on the lake. Ben Lomond, a huge phantom brandishing its granite fist, seemed to defy the tempest, while the tall trees in the park bent their leafy branches, resigned, awaiting the downpour. A manor, on the opposite bank, illumined by the moon, and surrounded by total darkness, would have tempted Gustave Doré as an illustration for the ballads of Robert Burns.

Instinctively, Lady Diana leaned against me. A streak of lightning had just flashed across the somber sky.

I murmured, “What do we amount to, after all? Nothing. Diana, your desires are out of proportion to all justice. You must kill that dream of yours, that dream of limitless wealth and power.”

But she wasn’t listening to me. She had drawn me back into the room. She brusquely placed her lips on mine. An imperious kiss, of which the delectable memory still lingers. She held me, imprisoned me in her arms.

“Gerard!” she whispered. “I shall be his wife in a week. Let us have revenge on cruel destiny. Let us forget all resolutions, all conventional ties for one night. We have a right to defy the fate which will soon crush me beneath its stifling weight. I love you because you have never loved me nor expressed any desire for me. You have invariably behaved like the most perfect of gentlemen. You have risked your life to make mine more
livable. For the first time then, and with all my heart, I offer myself to a man who is my equal, and I am proud to be under obligations to him, and I stretch out my arms to him with no other
arrière-pensée
than that of being totally happy.”

She drew back a step, her eyes shining with exaltation, her
déshabillé
slightly open showing a silken thistle embroidered over her left breast.… The Scotch thistle—the emblem of her country. She looked at me, trembling, an ethereal spirit possessed by the demon of midnight. The lightning flashed. The wind blew savagely through the room. The entire boudoir rustled as though being shaken roughly by some invisible giant.… Suddenly her bravery left her. She hid her face in her hands.

Two sudden knocks on the boudoir door startled us. We heard Juliette’s voice:

“Milady is wanted on the ’phone.”

Lady Diana, scarcely awake to realities, draped her
déshabillé
over her rumpled chemise. She asked with obvious ill-humor, “Who is it? Good heavens, to disturb me at such an hour!”